150 TRANSFORMATIONS OF INSECTS. 



from tlic hairy nature of the leaf and the diamond shape of the 

 excision the case has a very comical appearance. 



Some of the dry calyxes of the common Marjoram are 

 often found fastened together lengthwise when the plant is 

 going out of bloom, and a careful examination proves that 

 they have been formed into the case of a caterpillar. The 

 whitish larva of GclccJiia subocdla may be seen to poke its pale 

 brown head out of the end of this pretty refuge. The larva 

 feeds on the seeds of the plant, and when it has eaten the 

 contents of one flower it bites off the dry calyx, and using it 

 as a case proceeds to another flower, and places the movable 

 calyx in the opening of that which is fixed, the seeds of which 



THE LARVA OF Gelcchia SltboccUa in its case of ORIGANUM FLOWERS. 

 (After Stainton). 



it then demolishes. When the supply is exhausted, the cater- 

 pillar bites off the second calyx, and moves off to a third, and 

 thus the floweiy case gradually increases in length till it consists 

 of the husks of four or five flowers. When the caterpillar has 

 done with eating and flower-destroying, it attaches this singular 

 home either to the dried flower seed or to the stem of the plant, 

 or to some neighbouring object, and undergoes metamorphosis.* 



The yellowish green caterpillar of another Gelcchia (GclecJiia 

 mannoj'a) injures the roots of the Ccrastiuni, which grows on the 

 sand-hills near the coast, and forms little tubes of sand fastened 

 together with silk. The caterpillar having constructed this 

 peculiar home, attacks the leaves which are trailing on the 

 ground, leaving the case, and returning, before moving off, to 

 plunder some more distant plant. -The larva is almost subter- 



* Stainton, "Natural History of the Tincina," vol. x., part ii., p. 290. 



